Customer Reviews

Calculus (College Review)

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Having once suffered through a boring and utterly ineffective proof-centered university introductory calculus course, I waited 40 years to tackle calculus again. This book has proven immensely helpful. Professor Gootman has a knack for getting right to the point and carefully unfolding his explanation of what you really need to know, with unusually clear illustrative worked problems. He understands that painstaking exposition of theoretical proofs teaches less effectively than working on practical examples. Once the student learns to USE calculus in applied situations, then grasping the theory and proofs becomes much easier. I was able to comprehend everything he had to teach, although I must confess that I only completed the end-of-chapter problems for the first few chapters.

I came away thinking that calculus need not be as difficult as it is made out to be, or actually is in the hands of a less able teacher. Its level of difficulty approximates that of a somewhat difficult language--perhaps Russian for an English speaker. But no more. And, as with Russian, simply practicing it over time can bring gratifying results. Once you master about twenty basic procedures, the rest becomes far more approachable. I recommend this book highly to those frustrated with standard textbooks or simply wishing to understand the basics of how calculus works.

My friend and I have gone through more than a dozen calculus books looking to understand the subject. This was the first one to really explain itself well. It starts with the algebraic basics and works up to the calculus at whatever rate one sees fit. Now, a few weeks later, we're both fluent in differential calculus and working our way through integral calculus -- all from a basic algebra background.

Why do I like this book? It assumes you can wing it on some of the algebra and glosses the trig and logarithmic stuff to get to the brass tacks... derivatives and anti-derivatives (integrals).

In simple notation and examples it explains and emphasizes the use of limits to derive the calculus, gives examples and a good dose of exercises WITH ALL ANSWERS in the back!!!

It is not the ultimate calculus tome, it is a great review, it is short enough to handle after hours (since I work for a living) and is a relaxing text with which to work, each section is of good size.

Keep in mind, you will still need that tome on hand for deeper study and more exercises but this book cuts through the piles of pages most calc books bury you with before getting to the work at hand. Which is how one really learns the art of applying the process of calculus.

This text is a nice balance between a traditional calculus text and the smarmy calculus by cartoon type books, and it is more math book like than 'A Tour of the Calculus' by David Berlinski in that you get examples and practice problems.
The explanations are written in a relaxed, literate, and very readable style, without being patronizing or silly.
Enough examples and practice problems are provided to get the key points pounded into your head. The examples are worked through step by step with fairly clear explanations.
Be warned. This is definitely a review book or to be used in conjunction with a traditional class and text. It's a very quick pass over the material. It provides some minimal algebra review, but if you are rusty you will want some practice since it assumes you can handle rational expressions and exponents.
I worked through it a chapter at a time over an otherwise lazy week.

This man was an amazing professor. His class was interesting and this text book made me wonder why other Calcus texts exist. Buy this book for your children, they will love it.

Dr. Gootman has put together an excellent and concise introduction to Calculus. I would recommend this book to high school/college students or anyone interested in math. It is to-the-point, but thorough. It is an affordable text that works for supplemental reading as well as a stand-alone curriculum. If you are taking Calculus, read this book. Whatever your understanding, this book will improve your math skills.

This is a great book. I have been using it as a self-study guide to learning calculus and its been of amazing help. There are adequate number of examples in each chapter along with excercises and answers. The book does not indulge in futile background information sessions nor does it burden us with 20 million methods of solving a problem; Instead the author provides us with simple yet understandable and memorable explanations of what is what and why. Also, I find the chapters short and easy to ponder and digest. Had I only known calculus was this great and easy to learn 10 years.

All the calculus I took in college I forgot because I used to just remember the formulas without actually understanding the concepts behind them. Needless to say, I forgot everything about calculus as years went by. I find this book to be very approachable. The author does a great job in explaining clearly the concepts behind all the math instead of hitting you with all these formulas. I never thought calculus would be this simple...Great book!

Amazon is linking this product to many reviews of Gootmans' classic Calculus (College Review Series). That book is not available on the kindle, unfortunately.

*This* book is a dry but thorough introduction to a wide range of basic calculus topics.

This book doesn't cover all there is to cover in Calculus 1. It can't, it's too tiny. But what it does do it take you through the logic of increasingly abstract concepts. I found this enormously helpful beyond just helping me understand the concepts (though it did so admirably). I found that this careful progression helped me formalize my own thought process, helped me get more logical.

This won't cover everything you need to know, but I'm a big advocate of the more you know, the better, and this book will help you fill in some gaps.